La Maison de Rabelais

While scouring the Loire Valley for chateaux, I kept my eyes peeled for little restaurants that epitomized my vision of French country cuisine.  We didn't have a Michelin guide or anything else to guide us along (i.e. internet) so it was up to chance the food we came across during the few days we had between Bordeaux and Paris.

After one long day of driving, we ended up in Langeais, a charming town with a massive chateau smack in its center.  We stayed at Hotel Errard, which was just as we'd hoped: an ivy-covered exterior with a maze of staircases leading to our rustic, velvet-walled chambers.  For dinner, we ate in the hotel, a caricature of French dining.  There was huge mahogany furniture and absurdly large and complicated menus.  We ordered in hushed tones, like the few others in the dining room, and our dinner arrived under great silver domes.  I documented the whole thing here, but the menu was not one to be pocketed.  Instead, I enjoyed the meal in front of me: pig's foot and several glasses of red wine.

The next morning, after a jaunt around the damp medieval town, we stepped into the cafe across the great drawbridge of the chateau, La Maison de Rabelais.  The croissants in the window were glistening and flaky, and when we had them we agreed they were the best of the trip.  We ordered coffee, and- by happy accident- chocolate- which arrived in a separate mug and was dark and bitter and perfect for dipping and mixing with coffee.
 


The rest of the menu boasts sandwiches and an array of baked treats, which all looked lustrous and decadent behind the glass counter.  Upon reading the names of the desserts in the menu, I am reminded of the extravagant cakes one finds in Viennese cafes.  I am not one to go to a restaurant for dessert only, but they seem to be the highlight here.  After our giant croissants, we didn't have the space for such luxuries, but we were glad to have tried the house chocolate, since the menu lets us know it is their specialty...


My initial reaction to this restaurant across from the chateau was that it was a tourist stopover, angling for the tour-bus hoards as they departed the landmark; as it turns out, I don't think there's too much of a concern with that kind of scheming in the Loire Valley when it comes to food.  They take pride in their cuisine as much as their attractions; they're not just a commodity.  In retrospect, I should have bought a croissant to hang on the wall- it might as well have been a piece of art.